10 October 2011

Why We Call Them Boneheads Part Infinity

Just a quick update that the article we alluded to in our last post is still having the final touches completed and will be up shortly. Those who have an interest in what this blog covers will appreciate the research that it involved.

Classicalconditioning(also Pavlovian or respondentconditioning, Pavlovianreinforcement) is a form of conditioning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov (1927). The typical procedure for inducing classical conditioning involves presentations of a neutral stimulus along with a stimulus of some significance, the "unconditional stimulus." The neutral stimulus could be any event that does not result in an overt behavioral response from the organism under investigation. Conversely, presentation of the significant stimulus necessarily evokes an innate, never reflexive, response...

The original and most famous example of classical conditioning involved the salivary conditioning of Pavlov's dogs. During his research on the physiology of digestion in dogs, Pavlov noticed that, rather than simply salivating in the presence of meat powder (an innate response to food that he called the unconditional response), the dogs began to salivate in the presence of the lab technician who normally fed them. Pavlov called these psychic secretions. From this observation he predicted that, if a particular stimulus in the dog's surroundings were present when the dog was presented with meat powder, then this stimulus would become associated with food and cause salivation on its own. In his initial experiment, Pavlov used a bell to call the dogs to their food and, after a few repetitions, the dogs started to salivate in response to the bell.

If Pavlov were alive today he might well reproduce his experiment using boneheads, though instead of using a bell to induce salivation, he could just utter the word, "Jew" and watch the conditioned response of hate and stupidity.

The Jewish General Hospital (known officially as the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital since 1978, though the current branding does not emphasize the full name, and informally as simply "the Jewish") is an acute-care McGill University teaching hospital with 637 beds, serving patients from Montreal, from across the province of Quebec and around the world.

The Jewish General Hospital, which opened its doors in 1934, was founded as a general hospital, open to all patients regardless of race, religion, language or ethnic background. In 1969, the hospital opened the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, one of the largest and most influential research centres in Canada.

Among many other medical innovations, in 1974, the JGH was one of the first hospitals in Canada to open a division of colorectalsurgery.

At his death in 1928, Mortimer Davis left most of his estate to be used for the construction of a Jewish public hospital that would bear his name. In 1978, 50 years after his death, $10 million from his estate was donated to the Jewish General Hospital, which was then renamed the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital.

And for our interested readers, you might wish to examine the history of the hospital decade by decade at their website.

Given John is close to being morbidly obese, he might find this interesting:

The JGH becomes first hospital in Canada to perform balloon valvuloplasty, a procedure to unblock clogged arteries. (1987)

Would it surprise any of our readers that John has difficulty holding down a job?

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A group of diverse but like-minded individuals, the members of ARC have come together in their common desire to fight hatred, bigotry, intolerance and violence because of the harm these antisocial behaviors cause to our society. In that effort, we will not use or sanction the use of illegal actions (such as violence or intimidation) in pursuit of our desired aims and if we learn of anyone who does use these unethical methods we will report those individuals to the authorities. Instead, we will use the guarantees found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that ensure freedom of legal speech and expression.

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Race Traitor by Elisa Hategan

At age 16, Elisa Hategan was an alienated runaway who became recruited into Canada's most powerful white supremacist movement, the Heritage Front. She was groomed by top leaders to become a rising star of the extremist far-right movement. An errand girl for notorious Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, she was a witness to the illicit activities of an undercover CSIS agent and co-founder of the Heritage Front. At age 18, she turned against the group and spied on them for several months before testifying in court and going into hiding.